RESOURCES: Classic text revisited - Scouting for Boys Robert Baden-Powell, 1908

Scouting for Boys was the textbook for a movement that grew from the early 1900s to number 25 million current members and 150 million former members in 150 countries. It was written for young people, and each chapter is presented as a campfire yarn, in which the outdoors is offered as a site for young people to have adventures, not just read about them. Much of it seems rather quaint now. Some of the tales even edge into what we would now view as racism or sexism. And how many youngsters these days need advice on how to stop a runaway horse? But at the heart of Scouting for Boys is a philosophy and a method of youth work derived from Baden-Powells concern about character formation, the combination of physical and moral health and, more deeply, about individuality. And Baden-Powell did not see youth work as something only adults did. His emphasis was on boys organising themselves in their peer groups. There is advice on how to grow strong and stay healthy: Baden-Powell is in favour of fresh air and against smoking, drinking and masturbation. His stern warnings against a boy becoming a waster find an uncanny echo in David Blunketts comments about a disconnected generation a nocturnal society where people get up at lunchtime, stay up to the early hours and make their neighbours lives a misery. And then there is Baden-Powells idea of active citizenship: Education in citizenship can scarcely be considered complete unless it gives the pupil the opportunity of expressing in practice the spirit which it inculcates in theory. And that is difficult in a school.Reviewed by Tom Wylie, chief executive of the National Youth Agency and a former Scout.